


The Jerk

by Framlingem



Series: Drunken Personality Types [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Drunkenness, Gen, Juvenilia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 14:36:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1391353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Framlingem/pseuds/Framlingem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter wants more than anything to be great.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Jerk

There are several different kinds of drunk. There is the Jerk: the person who, given a little bit of alcohol, would gladly take on the world, particularly the very large man with the heavy fists. There is the Hero, who insists on leaping in to rescue everyone, even the ones who don't need rescuing. The Lover is suddenly everyone's best friend. The Philosopher gets quiet, and suddenly begins to contemplate the reasons for ceiling tiles.  
  
Remus is the Lover. He has no tolerance for alcohol, which is all right because he also doesn't have the money for alcohol. After a very small number of drinks, he feels that he has to touch everyone, and wants to buy them all drinks and tell them in exacting detail just how wonderful they are and how much he likes their shoes. He usually winds up lying across James's and Sirius's laps, head pillowed on Sirius's shoulder. He's not much of a weight, so they don't mind.  
  
James, as one would expect, is the Hero. After a few glasses of Firewhisky, he is convinced that he has the answer to everybody's problems. He holds forth at length on this; he feels qualified, as he is twenty and married and has a baby on the way. James has what he calls 'life experience'. James's solutions usually involve people moving into the house next door to his and Lily's, and living communally. He is convinced that close proximity is the best way for his friends to be happy. It is James who tries the hardest to convince Peter that being small is not a bad thing, and it is James who slips money into Remus' pockets when Remus is inebriated enough not to notice.  
  
Sirius, in what might be the most unforeseen development, is a Philosopher. James likes to tease him about his habit of staring off into space, and Remus, when sober and therefore capable of perceiving flaws, sometimes remarks acidly that Sirius is only capable of decent thought at all after he’s had a few bottles. When he talks, it’s inevitably Remus who is forced to listen to endless treatises on the deficiencies of the average towel rail, which is far too small and narrow to allow sufficient aeration of the towel, inefficiently drying any towels which might have the misfortune of being hung upon it. Fortunately, Remus is besotted, and usually sotted as well by the time Sirius gets to this stage, so he puts up with it.   
  
Peter, despite having been raised by the estimable Mrs. Prudence Pettigrew, is a Jerk. He always starts off amiably enough, joking around a bit about how Mr. Prongs really should _sit down_ because Mr. Wormtail is becoming afflicted with the most terrible stiffness of the neck, and wondering whether Mr. Padfoot will choose ceiling tiles, doorknobs, or towel rails again as a subject this week. Right now, he is nursing a black eye and a strong drink, muttering under his breath about the universal unfairness of a man the size of a refrigerator being fast as a... as a... a very fast thing as well.. He’d have got the bastard, too, if Sirius and James hadn’t grabbed an arm each and dragged him to the next pub.   
  
Nearly ten years ago, Prudence Pettigrew adjusted the fit of her son’s tie and admonished him to be a good boy at Hogwarts, and not to make friends with the Wrong Sort. Peter wanted to know who the Wrong Sort were, and how he could tell who the Right Sort were, but knew he’d get no answer save a sniff. He let his mother fuss over him for another minute before kissing her cheek and saying goodbye, running to the train before she could find another invisible speck of dust. He found a seat next to a window, next to a boy who was decidedly the Wrong Sort, with messy hair and crooked glasses. This was going to be great.   
  
Four and a half years ago, it was Peter’s turn. Remus was sitting on the corner bed, an expression of shocked delight on his face. Prongs was standing in the corner, pawing the ground a little in impatience. Padfoot was collapsed on Remus’s feet, tail thumping the floor.  
“You - you won’t laugh?” Remus assured him that no, he wouldn’t laugh, how could he laugh, this was amazing and they’d have to tell him all about it and how on Earth had they hidden this from him for so long? Peter closed his eyes and wrinkled his nose in concentration, and felt the odd sensation of shrinking and stretching elastically into an odd new shape. He opened his eyes and wiggled his nose at Remus. “Wow”, said Sirius, a boy again. “Smoothest yet, Wormtail. That was great!”  
  
Two years ago, Peter was invisible behind a stack of books in the library, the top of Remus’s head just visible next to him, above _The Goblin Rebellions of 1678 (November): An Analysis of the Ministry’s Actions_ and _A Banker’s Guide to Defense: Tombs, Traps, and Tunnels_. He’d just about given up on getting a History of Magic NEWT, despite Remus’s explanations and patience. Everything blurred together. On the other hand, scraping an A in Defense didn’t seem to be impossible; years of pranking and being pranked (mostly being pranked) had taught him to be quick on his feet, and being a rat on a regular basis had given him excellent situational awareness. Besides, he liked tunnels, liked being underground, liked the dark and the dust. Remus said he had the logic and caution to be a great cursebreaker.   
  
Three weeks ago, they came to his house - to his _house_ \- and stood in the kitchen, two of them, hands on his shoulders holding him down on the kitchen chair and voices in his ear. Power, they promised. Power like nothing he’d ever known. Would he say no out of fear? They thought Gryffindors were supposed to be brave. Maybe he’d been Sorted into the wrong house. Cowards didn’t belong in Gryffindor. But then, he’d never belonged, had he? Of course he belonged, he said. He had James, and Sirius, and Remus. Ah, but he was a shadow, wasn’t he? James’s friend. Sirius’s friend. Remus’s friend. Did he have the courage to stand alone, to be defined as himself, to do great things, to be remembered ? Be a Gryffindor. Be brave. Be Peter. You could be great.  
  
Half an hour ago, he noticed a very large man pointing at his friends and snickering about something. He took a swig from a bottle, pursed his lips a bit, and swaggered over to the table in the back corner in time to hear something about ‘fucking poofs’, followed by a very rude noise.  
“ ’Scuse me,” said Peter, “but would you mind standing up?” The man obliged, standing up (and up, and up), and Peter looked up at him, said “bastard”, and took full advantage of the height difference to land a lovely uppercut right on the cleft of the man’s magnificent mandible. At least, he would have had the man not seen it coming a mile away, pulled his head back so that Peter’s fist ended up hovering in the air in front of the man’s nose, and knocked Peter down with a fist to the side of the face. Peter had been back on his feet and going for the throat when Sirius and James dragged him spitting and snarling away. “Great, Pete. Just great.”  
  
Peter, a Cursebreaker’s Assistant (second class) raises his eyes from his drink and contemplates his friends for a second; debonair, handsome Sirius; witty, wry Remus; accomplished, successful James.   
  
He gulps down another swallow and swipes the back of his hand over his mouth.  
“Oi, James.”  
“What, Pete?”  
“I’m strong, and whatnot, right?”  
James shoves Remus’s left leg into a more comfortable position.. “‘Course you are, mate. You’re a Marauder.”  
  
Peter sobs and throws his bottle across the room, where it smashes against the wall.


End file.
